God is Not Fair

On the scale of “shit that is good”, I think everyone would agree that fairness and equality are right up there at the top behind french fries. Any imagined/designed/created construct must always take fairness into account.

Designing a new game? It has to be fair. Scissors cut paper. Paper covers rock. Rock smashes scissors. It has to be like that. If scissors could cut a rock, then everybody would be trying to pick scissors and the thing would probably break out in a fight. Not fair.

So what is going on down here on earth? We are living our lives, trying to gain some happiness without preventing others from gaining theirs (unless they want your big screen TV or something, then it’s on!).

Many believe that the key is to believe in Jesus. Love him, perhaps. You do that and you live forever where the streets are paved with gold. (Are we driving on these streets or is it more of a pedestrian walkway? Because I’d imagine those streets would kick up a hell of a glare. The back of one of those damn hatchbacks is already enough to give me a headache sometimes…) OK, what might a rational person desire in order to believe in something? Some sort of proof. Perhaps physical. Perhaps visual. Something.

If this is what God/Jesus really wants and it is so important to him – for us to believe in him (or possibly burn in hell for eternity), you’d think he’d make it fair. I mean, this is pretty serious stuff. Burning flesh is on the line, and forget about the pain, that stuff can really smell!

But it doesn’t seem terribly fair. God talked to Moses and parted the Red Sea. He burned a bush. So he saw some physical/visual proof. It was easy for him to believe. God talked to Noah and bestowed upon him futuristic shipbuilding plans and killed almost everyone on earth (not fair, but let’s continue). So again, it was easy for Noah to believe. God killed Job’s 10 kids over a bet with Satan (not fair, but let’s stop getting sidetracked), so as pissed as he should be, it was easy for Job to believe. I could go on.

It seems that God has gotten shy since those happy times, so now it’s kind of a word of mouth thing. Why is this starting to sound like an MLM? Let me guess, this is all so that God can put more money into the product and not waste money on a central marketing campaign? Got it. But have you seen some of these reps and distributors? These were handpicked? God is cool with this arrangement? Maybe this is the same “plausible deniability” that Amway uses. Sometimes I tell my kids stuff to pass on to my wife, but you have to believe if her eternal soul were on the line, I would go and deliver the message myself. No matter. I get it. It’s a word of mouth thing now.

So if you are born to parents who tell you that Jesus rules your daily life, you are more likely to believe than someone born to parents who lack such faith. Kids believe what their parents tell them (I am told – I personally haven’t seen much evidence of this). Still, in this age of technological wonders, a lot of people now have access to the most serious forms of truth such as the bible and Fox News. So let’s say most of America has been given their chance. But what if you live in the 3rd world and Tim Tebow’s family hasn’t gotten around to your village yet? Well, you continue shrinking heads or throwing maidens into volcanoes, and when you die, you’re screwed.

Fair?